Making decisions can sometimes be stressful and scary. Knowing what typically makes decisions difficult for us is sometimes helpful.
First of all, good news: In principle, we don’t need to be overly afraid of making seemingly wrong or bad or unwise decisions. Hardly any of our decisions will have catastrophic, permanent or unmanageable consequences – unless they cost us our lives. Of course, we can decide something here and there that makes our lives uncomfortable. That causes us trouble, that demands something from us that we would have preferred to save, that causes us to lose something. But we can deal with that.
Difficult times are an unavoidable part of our comparatively long lives. And the fact that we are allowed to take responsibility for one or the other of these through a decision is basically a privilege: because it shows that we have at least a certain degree of freedom and the opportunity to have a say.
However, there are some common pitfalls when making decisions that can prevent us from making decisions with the greatest freedom and wisdom possible. Knowing these traps and avoiding them may save us from a few painful lessons or regrets. Or at least give us a greater sense of control in the moment of decision.
4 typical decision-making mistakes and how you can avoid them
1. You subconsciously choose clarity.
Most people generally tend to choose something familiar rather than something unknown. From an evolutionary biology perspective, this strategy has clear advantages: venturing into unknown areas carried the risk of starving or freezing to death. Eating an unknown fruit could mean poisoning. Unless there was an urgent need to leave the familiar environment, it was safer and wiser to stay there. This may still apply today – but with restrictions.
Fortunately, in our modern world we are not threatened with mortal danger at every corner. Rather, the world invites you to try out and discover new things. The decisions we have to make are usually less about ensuring our survival than about achieving the highest possible quality of life and being as satisfied as possible.
This means that whenever we are faced with a decision that involves changing something in our lives, it can make sense to question our reasons very carefully. Leaving everything the same will always have a bonus point in our brain because it means we survive. But if that is all that speaks against change, against the unknown, we are wasting the freedom and opportunities that our current world offers us.
2. You base your decision (unconsciously) on what others like.
Because we are highly social creatures, it is virtually impossible for us to keep other people’s opinions or examples out of our decisions. It doesn’t matter, we don’t have to. However, if we focus solely on what others do or what others like, we give up part of our identity. Because what am I of all people for if I only orient myself towards others?
This means that it can be worth taking a closer look, especially when it comes to decisions that other people are happy about or that many others make in the same way as we do. Is it a coincidence that it happens like this? Or have we paid less attention to our own personality and voice than to the voices of others?
3. You don’t give yourself enough time.
The harder a decision is for us, the quicker we usually want to make it – if something is open, we find it difficult to bear it. However, sometimes we may simply not be ready to make a decision yet. If we then give ourselves some time, either something can happen that makes the decision easier for us, or we can gain clarity through processes in our subconscious. Maybe we play through different options in our sleep and thereby gain insights or better access to our feelings.
This means: Whenever we feel driven to make a decision for which the deadline has not yet been reached or for which there is no deadline, we can perhaps benefit from consciously postponing the decision a little and paying as little attention to it as possible.
4. You get lost in your head.
Many people feel most comfortable when they can logically derive a decision and justify it rationally. But our mind is not the only – nor always the best – resource we can use to make a decision. Our intuition and feelings are a valuable compass, especially when making very complex decisions. Likewise, exchanging ideas with other people can enrich us and help us get out of our mental labyrinth because it shows alternative perspectives.
This means: Especially if the pros and cons list speaks clearly or the facts appear clear, but we still cannot bring ourselves to the appropriate decision, it is probably appropriate to avert our gaze from the list and the facts at hand. It is usually most helpful to talk to someone we trust about the matter – this often not only lets us find out how they see the matter, but also makes us more aware of our own feelings.
Sources used: Martin Korte, Brain Gestures: How we learn to train our memory effectively